oneworld: Travel booking reimagined with AI
Supports 100% accuracy in travel planning
Builds and deploys fully functional AI travel agent app in only six months
Makes it faster, easier, and more accurate for people to optimally plan complicated travel
Paves the way for further AI innovations to increase airline revenue and passenger satisfaction
5x increase in booking conversions
oneworld uses Elemental Cognition platform powered by Google Cloud to create an AI travel agent to guide people as they build complex itineraries to travel the world.
oneworld uses Elemental Cognition platform powered by Google Cloud to create an AI travel agent to guide people as they build complex itineraries to travel the world.
Global airline alliances offer unique and exciting opportunities for travelers by expanding the networks and bringing together multiple airlines. oneworld global airline alliance is one of the three major global alliances.
oneworld brings together 13 world-class airlines – Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines, and more than 20 of their affiliates. Oman Air is set to join the alliance as the 14th member airline in 2024, with Fiji Airways joining as the 15th member airline. oneworld member airlines work together to deliver consistently a superior, seamless travel experience, with special privileges and rewards for frequent flyers, including earning and redeeming miles and points across the entire alliance network.
"We are entirely focused on enhancing the customer experience," says Roger Blackburn. "This encompasses everything from making our customers' journeys across the oneworld network as seamless as possible through digital technology, providing more opportunities to earn and redeem loyalty rewards, to offering world-class service through oneworld branded lounges."
oneworld's 'round-the-world' fares demonstrate the breadth of its global network. These fares cater to aspirational, sometimes once-in-a-lifetime trips.
Customers increasingly want to buy such products online, but booking journeys with up to 16 stages across often unfamiliar locations is a step significantly beyond typical airline booking engine capabilities. Importantly, the solution needed to support 100% accuracy in travel planning as well.
This was seen as a barrier to scaling ticket sales that could be alleviated through the use of more advanced technology. To achieve this goal, the company turned to Google Cloud and Elemental Cognition.
Modernizing travel planning
"In the airline industry, we have to work globally in real time," explains Blackburn. "And, we were one of the first industries to face the challenge of selling products across the globe in real-time. Today, we're also leading change with more modern cloud solutions and AI to reimagine what's possible for travelers."
oneworld engaged Elemental Cognition, a Google Cloud partner, to build a system that enables people plan and book complicated travel on their own.
"The art to this is to hold the customer's hand enough to help them explore and imagine their ideal journey," says Blackburn. "The solution acts as the customer's expert partner to help them understand what is possible, then build a valid itinerary that conforms absolutely to the fare rules and is a flyable journey around the world."
There are over 1034 possible itineraries, and customer preferences change as they understand what's possible. This enhances the need for a reliable and adaptive constraint optimization solution capable of interacting directly with customers.
"100% conformance with airline schedules and fare rules is the minimum requirement, not some aspiration," says Blackburn. "This is not a problem where we can tolerate an algorithm hallucinating options, and the creativity must be channeled toward finding deliverable solutions to customers' developing needs."
In Elemental Cognition and Google Cloud, oneworld found ideal solutions.
"Customers use Elemental Cognition to solve complex problems with AI when they can't afford to be wrong," says Matt Demmler, Chief Commercial Officer at Elemental Cognition. "oneworld was a perfect match because they needed to help customers build complex travel plans that were 100% accurate and optimal based on changing customer preferences and oneworld's business constraints."
Smart, accurate planning of once-in-a-lifetime trips
Elemental Cognition worked with oneworld to create a multi-modal AI ticketing agent. As a first step, the company captured all of oneworld's fare rules into its system to create a proof of concept for its AI agent.
"The initial setup was incredibly fast," says Blackburn. "Within weeks, Elemental Cognition delivered an exciting prototype. Soon after that, we presented the game-changing experience to our alliance members. They were amazed and delighted."
At build time, Elemental Cognition's platform uses a fine-tuned Gemini model and Vertex AI to update oneworld's Formal Knowledge Model (FKM), which is a natural language business specification. The FKM contains the application's definitions, requirements, constraints, and objectives. It does not contain prompts, code, how to plan or optimize travel, or how to collaborate with users.
All of this is handled automatically by Elemental Cognition's Reasoning Engine, which generates solutions with reliable, mathematical precision. The FKM is written in a subset of English called Cogent. The proprietary language developed by Elemental Cognition reads like natural language but acts as executable code that compiles directly into the company's Reasoning Engine. A Gemini model is used in Elemental Cognition's Cogent application to assist users to easily author Formal Knowledge Model documents.
The Elemental Cognition Reasoning Engine integrates with BigQuery, which stores local flight schedule data to ensure customers can book itineraries using accurate, current information. BigQuery also logs live customer sessions to gather performance statistics and run detailed error analyses alongside Google Logs Explorer.
At run-time within the app, a Gemini model, and Vertex AI translate formal answers generated by Elemental Cognition Reasoning Engine into natural language to communicate with people as they plan their trips.
All travel plans are generated by the Elemental Cognition Reasoning Engine. The large language models (LLMs) do not generate answers because they cannot do this with 100% accuracy—a requirement for any services provided by oneworld. However, LLMs can provide a foundation for natural language communication between the AI ticketing agent app and end users.
"Elemental Cognition blew us away with their ability to read our various sources of complexity," says Blackburn. "They ingested a year's worth of global airline schedules and our rules which are recorded in a variety of formats. Out of that, they built a solution that our customers could work with in natural language. This was really the only time I've seen someone solving that problem in that way."
Elemental Cognition has helped us to create a smart and intuitive tool that has transformed our booking process. Since its introduction, we've witnessed a fivefold increase in conversions. Elemental Cognition clearly grasped our challenges and objectives, allowing us to deliver a powerful application that improves and simplifies the booking process.
Roger Blackburn
VP, Europe, oneworld
Bookings and services take off
The AI ticketing app took just six months to develop and deploy—and importantly, supports 100% accuracy in travel planning.
"Elemental Cognition has helped us to create a smart and intuitive tool that has transformed our booking process. Since its introduction, we've witnessed a fivefold increase in conversions. Elemental Cognition clearly grasped our challenges and objectives, allowing us to deliver a powerful application that improves and simplifies the booking process. We are at the forefront of industry change, utilizing modern cloud solutions and AI to reimagine what is possible for travelers."
Elemental Cognition believes it was well positioned to assist oneworld and embraced the complex challenges involved in the project.
Customers use Elemental Cognition to solve complex problems with AI when they can't afford to be wrong. oneworld was a perfect match because they needed to help customers build complex travel plans that were 100% accurate and optimal based on changing customer preferences and oneworld's business constraints.
Matt Demmler
Chief Commercial Officer, Elemental Cognition
"Customers use Elemental Cognition to solve complex problems with AI when they can't afford to be wrong," says Matt Demmler, CCO at Elemental Cognition. "Oneworld was a perfect match because they needed to help customers build complex travel plans that were 100% accurate and optimal based on changing customer preferences and oneworld's business constraints."
Looking ahead, oneworld plans to build on the success of the AI-based ticketing app to deliver even more value to member airlines. They view AI as a vital technology in addressing an even wider variety of travel industry needs. For example, they are exploring scaling the app to serve up a variety of other related travel services.
"Planning travel sparks people's passions and imagination," says Blackburn. "With Elemental Cognition's Reasoning Engine and Google Cloud, we simplify and enhance the experience, making it easier and more enjoyable for people to plan their dream holidays, no matter how complex they are."
Planning travel sparks people's passions and imagination. With Elemental Cognition's Reasoning Engine and Google Cloud, we simplify and enhance the experience, making it easier and more enjoyable for people to plan their dream holidays, no matter how complex they are.
Roger Blackburn
VP, Europe, oneworld
oneworld brings together 13 world-class airlines who work together to deliver consistently a superior, seamless travel experience, with special privileges and rewards for frequent flyers, including earning and redeeming miles and points across the entire alliance network.
Industries: Travel & Hospitality
Location: United States
Products: Google Cloud, Vertex AI, BigQuery
About Google Cloud Partner- Elemental Cognition
Elemental Cognition's (EC) enterprise AI platform delivers the reliability, accuracy, and transparency businesses need. EC combines the fluency of large language models with the rigor of formal reasoning to create a neuro-symbolic AI architecture that can solve complex problems when businesses can't afford to be wrong.
